


Broken

by dabnyfantown



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Depressive Thoughts, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Maybe - Freeform, PTSD, So much angst, idk some other trigger warnings, ill add more tags as they see fit, im sorry, it will get better, literally the first chapter is nothing but angst, pls read at own risk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 11:43:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7220947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dabnyfantown/pseuds/dabnyfantown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was too late to save them, and now she might not even be able to save herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They were dead. Her friends, her family, they were all dead; and it was all her fault.

The akuma was tough, tougher than anything they had ever seen before. To say Ladybug was unprepared would be an understatement. She could do nothing as Alya was flung across the room, and out the window. Could only scream as others were met with the same fate: Nino, Alix, Kim, even her maman was taken from her.

She was too late to save them, and now she might not even be able to save herself.

The once amiable atmosphere between her and Chat was now tense and grief-stricken. Ladybug herself was shaking, barely able to keep it all together. She would have broke already, she realized, if it weren’t for Chat. In a strange turn of events it was him who had held it together this time. Grabbing Ladybug around the waist, he pulled her away from the now-ruined school building and into a nearby alleyway. Placing a hand upon her shoulder, he looked deeply into her eyes, raising his brow in question. He wanted to know if she was okay. Was she? She had froze back there, Ladybug had never froze in battle before. It seemed today was a day of firsts for everyone. She could feel herself shutting down, too numb to really process what had happened, but she gave a nod anyways and together they jumped back into battle. They still had a city to save. The fight seemed to drag on forever. Ladybug was exhausted, she was covered in cuts and bruises and she was fairly sure she had a concussion from when the akuma - what even was his name? - had thrown her into the wall minutes before; Chat wasn’t faring much better. Still they fought, never giving up even as plan after plan seemed to fail.

“This isn’t working, Chat,“ she called out after their 5th failed attempt of getting the akumatized item from him. “We need to think of a new way to approach this."

"And what do you propose?” his tone was harsh, harsher than he meant she was sure. They had both been through a lot, had seen a lot. She bit her lip, hard. They had to end this, now. Before anyone else got - that’s when she heard it. The sickening “crunch” as Chat was thrown from where he stood into a nearby building. She didn’t even register the sound of her own screaming in her ears. She barely recalled running over to him, the akuma now in the back of her mind. Her body moved on autopilot, it’s only goal being to reach him, to make sure he was okay.

She let out a strangled cry at the sight of his mangled, broken body. She might have a D in anatomy, but she was fairly certain limbs weren’t suppose to be able to bend that way. A large puddle of blood had began to form under him, and his skin seemed pale; she didn’t let herself think about what that could mean. His eyes were half-lidded, and his gaze wouldn’t focus on her.

“Please,” she whimpered, tightly grasping his hand in hers, “Don’t leave me, Chat. I- I can’t.. I need you. Don’t you.. don’t you dare die on me, Chat.” He looked at her then, but his eyes were glassy and he seemed to be somewhere else, far away. He tried to speak, but blood was all that came out. She was crying now, the emotional dam she had built up finally breaking.

“Chat.. Please.. I can’t lose you, too. I can’t lose you. You’re all I have,” She placed her forehead on his, ignoring the blood smeared across his temple, and pressed a small kiss to his cheekbone. He spoke then, so quietly part of her thought she was imagining things.

“I’m.. sorry.. my.. lady..” it was slurred and garbled from the blood, but she heard it; and she shook even harder as she heard him take a few small, strangled gasps, and then nothing at all. He was gone. They were all gone.

-

-

-

The next few moments were all a blur. She couldn’t recall how she got from Chat’s body to here, throwing a jump rope, her lucky charm, into the air. She barely had the strength to murmur the words “lucky charm” before she sank to her knees.

-

-

A firm hand grabbed her shoulder, and she jumped. She whipped around to face her attacker, body ready for a fight.

“Woah, woah, woah! It’s just me, my lady. You’re awful jumpy.“ She froze. Chat stared at her, a confused expression upon his face.

“Everything alright there, LB? I’m afraid I don’t really remember much of what happened.. But it looks like we won!"

”..“

"Ladybug? Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It took all her strength not to break down and cry right then and there.

“Chat? Is it really you?” her voice was small, afraid.

“Of course it’s me, my lady. Who else?”

  
“But you’re - you’re okay?”

  
“Why wouldn’t I be? Did the akuma do something?” She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. She had just watched Chat die; yet, here he was. Alive as ever. Glancing around, she spotted several people starting to crowd around them. Among them were some of her classmates: Alya, Nino, Kim, Max, even Chloe was there, watching them with curiosity. They were all okay, all alive; she couldn’t tell whether she should be relieved or not.

“I-” she started, not really sure what to say “You don’t.. You don’t remember? What happened?”

“Ah, no. I’m afraid not… All I remember is transforming and then.. Nothing. Sorry.” he looked sheepish, his hand reaching up to run through his hair. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, and she couldn’t think with all these people staring at her; waiting for an explanation. Her outfit suddenly felt too hot, too tight, and her lungs couldn’t seem to function properly. She had just watched all these people, all her friends die, and nobody remembered a damn thing. She didn’t know what to do, so she did the only reasonable thing she could think of: she fled.

-

-

She barely managed to make it back to her room before she collapsed, releasing her transformation. Her head was still spinning from earlier, and she absentmindedly noted that there was dried blood at her hairline; none of her other injuries seemed to have healed either. She sat there for what seemed like years, staring at nothing in particular, before Tikki finally managed to say something.

“Marinette.. Are you.. Are you okay?”

"You saved them.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Tikki had saved them all, that much she understood. She seemed to hesitate, if only slightly, before answering again.

“I did.."

"And you erased all their memories.” Another fact.

“Yes. I did.”

“But you didn’t erase mine.”

“You have to understand Marinette.. There’s only so much our magic can do. I was barely able to bring them back.. I couldn’t even heal you injuries.”

“.."

"Marinette.. Please.. I know you are upset but-”

“Upset. Upset?? Tikki, I just had to watch as everyone I know and love died before me, and there was absolutely nothing I could do to save them. I’m Ladybug, the "savoir of Paris”, and I couldn’t even save my friends. I couldn’t save Chat-“ her voice wavered slightly, and she had to calm herself down before she could speak again, "I couldn’t save anyone. And I will never forgive myself for that.” Tikki started to speak then, but Marinette shut her out. It was her fault, everything was her fault, and she didn’t know how she was going to live with that.

-

-

Marinette continued to live, but she wouldn’t exactly call it living. Everything felt so foreign to her now. It was like she was walking through fog; the faces and voices around her all seemed to blend together until everything appeared as one giant blob. Half the time she was awake, her mind was asleep. She still got up and went to school, still battled akumas when they happened; but she wasn’t really there. It was more like she was just going through the motions. It was a miracle she even managed to breathe half the time, let alone function like a normal human being. She shut down, shut anyone and everyone out, even Tikki; it hurt too much to do otherwise. If people noticed the bags under eyes from not sleeping, or the weight she had lost from the lack of eating, well.. They didn’t comment on it. Or, if they did, she was too out of it to hear.

-

School was hard. When she was alone, in her room, it was easy to forget everything she had seen. Easy to forget the way Alya’s eyes widened in terror before she burst through the window to her death. Easy to forget the faces of her classmates, how they looked upon their dead bodies. Really, it was easy. As long as she didn’t let herself think, or feel, or sleep; (the nightmares were the worst. she had learned that a while ago. now she just avoided sleeping altogether) it was easy. At school it was.. not so easy. It took everything she had not to break down every time she walked into the classroom. Seeing them there, all so happy and free and alive.. It killed her - If she allowed herself to feel anything anymore she might laugh at the irony of that statement; but that’s not the way things worked anymore.

Alya was one of the few people who saw through her facade. She tried to let her help, she really did; but it was hard to open up when she could barely look at her best friend without flinching. Although, Marinette had to admit, she probably wouldn’t’ve made it this long without Alya forcing her to eat every once in a while.

It was easier to simply just push her away, even though Alya wouldn’t let her. She was a journalist, and a persistent one at that. Everyday she would try to push past the walls Marinette had built up, and everyday Mari would push back harder. There was no way she could explain all of this to her, not without revealing herself as Ladybug. She knew if she told her, Alya would make her give it up. As much as Alya loves Ladybug, she would never ask Marinette to do it if she knew what it was doing to her; and as tempting as that sometimes sounded, she couldn’t. She had already failed this city, failed Alya, once; she wasn’t going to do it again just because of her own silly feelings. So she pulled away: from Alya, from her parents.. even from herself.

-

School was hard, but being around Chat was harder. Every time she saw him, whether it be due to an akuma or patrol, she felt a piece of herself break even further. If anyone would be able to understand what she was going through, it was him. But she couldn’t do that to him, couldn’t burden him like that. He would never forgive himself if he knew just how badly his lady had been hurting, knew that she was broken and there was nothing he could do to fix her. So instead, she pretended. She pretended that everything was okay, that she was fine. Pretended that underneath her suit she wasn’t covered in scars from that day: both physical and mental. And it seemed to work; Chat just continued on cracking jokes and flirting with her, and he didn’t seem to notice that her smile never reached her eyes.

She wondered if this is how it was always going to be; if she was always going to be this broken shell of what she once was. A part of her believed that she deserved it, that this was her price for failing everyone that day. Another part of her believed that maybe she didn’t even deserve to be ladybug anymore, that she had lost that right too. The other part of her just didn’t care anymore altogether.

She wasn’t sure which was worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alya has a breakdown and Adrien just wants to help his friend

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this update is really soon from when I first posted but I wrote the last chapter forever ago - I probably won't update this often. This one is kind of shorter and just jumps right in to the plot, but I wanted to get the story started.

Adrien missed seeing Marinette smile. He wasn't exactly sure when he had become so accustomed to seeing the shy girl's smile, but now that it was gone he missed it more than he cared to admit. He missed a lot of things about Marinette really. The way her bubbly personality always seemed to light up the room. Her laugh that was so infectious it was hard to feel sad at all when you heard it. How she stood up for everyone and everything that she believed in. He even missed the way her face would heat up and she couldn't seem to form a coherent sentence whenever he was around. She was once so full of happiness and of kindness and of life; now she just seemed... empty.  

He didn't know exactly when it happened, but one day Marinette simply stopped being Marinette. She stopped laughing. She stopped smiling. Hell, she probably would have stopped talking altogether were it not for their teachers forcing her to participate in class. He knew he wasn't the only one who noticed Marinette's strange behavior: Alya was constantly trying to press Mari for information, and Nino seemed to have made it his goal in life to get her to laugh. Even Chloe seemed to pick up that something was wrong, not even bothering to speak to her at all anymore; which, in a backwards way, was the nicest thing Chloe could possibly do.  

It worried Adrien. All he wanted to do was help the girl, but he had no idea how to do so. He didn’t even know if she considered him a friend, let alone how to help her through whatever she was going through. He just hoped she would start feeling like herself again soon. 

Apparently he wasn't the only one who'd been having these thoughts; as he neared the classroom he could hear a very distressed Alya pleading with whom he assumed was Marinette. He caught Nino's eye just outside the room and quirked an eyebrow in question, but the boy just shook his head. It would probably best to just wait this one out. Still, he couldn't help overhearing some of what Alya was saying, and it made his heart clench painfully at how anguished she sounded.  

"-inette, please. Please talk to me. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.. I can't keep watching you. 

"You need _help_ Mari. God, if you won’t let me help you, then let someone else. You're hurting, I know you are. I just don't know _why._ And I can't help you if you won't talk to me. Please, Mari. You're my best friend." There was a small pause as she sniffed; Adrien guessed that she had started crying sometime during her speech. Marinette still remained silent.  

"You don’t sleep anymore. You hardly eat. I can't remember the last time I actually saw you with a smile on your face. This isn't healthy, what you're doing to yourself, it's not- 

"I'm _worried_ about you. God, I'm so worried. And- and I'm scared. I'm scared that you're not okay. Scared that you're going to do something to-to yourself.. Something bad Mari. And you not talking to me only makes it worse.. Please, Mari. I just- I can't-" Adrien had to step back as Alya suddenly ran out of the room, tears streaming down her face. Adrien moved to go follow her, but stopped as Nino put up a hand.  

"I got this one, bro. Just- just go check on Marinette, will you?" Adrien simply nodded and watched as Nino ran off too, before heading into the classroom. Marinette was standing there, by her desk, a blank expression on her face as she stared down at her feet.  

"Hey," he started. Marinette, as expected, didn't even acknowledge him, just kept staring down at her shoes. He hummed in thought for a second before speaking again. 

"Hey, you know what? Why don't we go grab some lunch? I was actually just coming back to get my bag and then I was gonna head to that new Chinese place around the corner. Does that sound good?" Marinette just shook her head in response. Still, he supposed, it was better than nothing.  

"Aw, come on. It will be fun. I'll pay?" She was silent still, but she didn’t say no. He supposed he would take what he could get. Gently, he grabbed hold of her elbow and began to lead her out of the classroom and out the building. She remained quiet the whole time, but she didn't seem to be against going with him, so he continued leading her the whole way to the restaurant. He didn't speak again until they were both seated across from eachother in a booth.  

"So," he began, a little awkwardly. "You ever been here before?" She shook her head again, and Adrien had to fight off the urge to smile. A head shake was good enough for now.   

"No? Me either. My father, he uh, he doesn't really approve of me going out that often. He prefers for me to eat at home, where he can monitor every little calorie I eat." He laughed bitterly at this, which caused Marinette's eyes to snap to his. He could just see traces of concern in those usually emotionless blue eyes.  

"But it's fine!" He was quick to add. "I mean, I don't mind. It comes with being a model, you know? Just sucks that I don't get to go out as often to eat as I'd like. It's whatever. I'm glad to be here now.. With you." And he was. He may not know Marinette as well as he'd like, but he still enjoyed being around her. He desperately wished for them to be closer, to be friends. He could always use more of those. Sure, he had Nino, and Alya as an extension of that. But he didn't really get to see them as often as he'd like, and when he did it was usually as a third wheel. Which he didn't mind, but still; it would be nice to have other friends. 

Then of course, there was Ladybug. Ladybug: his best friend, his partner, and the love of his life. Ladybug who, as of late, seemed to hardly stand being around him. She was still as wonderful and kind as ever, sure, but she didn't seem to be into it anymore. She was short, cut off; she only seemed to care about getting the mission done and then leaving. She would never be rude to him, he knew that, but he could tell that her smile never reached her eyes around him anymore. He wasn't sure what he did to her to make her act this way around him, but it hurt. A lot. He wished there was some way to fix it, but every time he tried to talk to Ladybug about it, she would run off.  

They were silent for a while as they ate the food that had just arrived. Adrien didn't really know what to say to Marinette; he didn't really know her that way and he didn't want to say anything that would make her upset. He wished he knew what to say; knew how to help her. In fact, Adrien was so focused on trying to think of something to say to her, that he almost missed when she actually spoke to _him_. 

"Thank you for this, Adrien." Her voice sounded small, and slightly scratchy from not being used. He smiled gently, even at her worst times, Marinette was kind as ever. 

"Hey," he said tenderly, reaching a hand across the table in a comforting gesture. "Don't mention it. I just want- we _all_ just want to help you. You're my friend Marinette, and I know this might be hard to believe, but we all just want you to be okay. Me, Nino, Alya.. Hell, even Chloe seems to be worried. Alya wasn't just saying that earlier, she's worried about you. We all are. I just- I want you to know I'm here for you, okay?" Something inside Marinette must have broken at his words, because he could have sworn he'd seen tears welling up in her eyes. She never cried.  

After a moment of silence in which Adrien thought she wasn't going to say anything in response, she finally opened her mouth to speak.. But was cut off when the sounds of screaming tore down the street.  

"Run," he ordered, not missing the panicked look upon her face. "Get somewhere safe." 

"But-" 

"Don't worry about me. I'm gonna... go.. hide? Yea! I'm gonna go hide.. Somewhere. And you should too! Let Ladybug and Chat Noir take care of this." She looked like she wanted to say something else, but was cut off again as more screams echoed through the building. Instead, she just narrowed her eyes and ran off towards an exit. Adrien sighed, watching her go for a moment before turning away in search of someplace to transform. Akuma's had the worst timing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of Marinette's reactions to depression and ptsd are based on my own, so sorry if you feel something isn't accurately portrayed. Please let me know if I should fix something.

**Author's Note:**

> This part kind of drags on and doesn't have any real plot - I'll get to those later. This was more an introduction of sorts. Idk just lemme know what you think.


End file.
